Hey Ho Let's Go! The Ramones Anthology

Hey Ho Let's Go! The Ramones Anthology

The first four Ramones albums were unassailable genre-defining masterworks, but the 12 that followed were pretty damn spotty. Which is why Hey Go Let’s Go! The Ramones Anthology, a chronological two-CD retrospective, is so frustrating — the careerist competency of later songs like ”Something to Believe In” feels hollow and false compared with the punky perfection of, say, ”53rd & 3rd.” Still, the great early stuff on the first CD hits so straight, deep, and true, it’d be churlish to judge this well-intentioned collection too harshly. Since it all began with ”Blitzkrieg Bop,” let’s give it a B.